And here's a nice surprise. Marian Churchland has completed her second issue -- Marian's work can be seen in issues 18-20. Unfortunately most of the pages I downloaded today were corrupted by the file transfer, but here's a snap of a page I was able to see properly.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Those of you who might be worried about how far ELEPHANTMEN had fallen behind this year can take comfort in the fact that Boo Cook is already halfway finished inking Ian Churchill's breakdowns for issue #15, which ships three weeks behind #14. Chris Burnham's issue #16 ships two weeks after that and Rob Steen just turned in the last page of #17.

Even though the digital ink is not quite dry on issue #15, I am happy to say that artist Chris Burnham, who delivered the back up strip, SILENT RUNNING, in ELEPHANTMEN #9 has already turned in all the pencils and half the inks for issue #16. Tatto Caballero, who coloured FINAL INCAL for Ladrönn will be colouring this issue, but I think you will agree that it already looks pretty splendid!

Here as promised are scans of Rebecca Hendin's 800 DAYS comic. When she offered the book in exchange for copies of the ELEPHANTMEN trades I had no idea that each copy of the comic had cost her $24 at Kinko's. That means you still owe me a dollar, Rebecca! ; )

I *think* the title and Rebecca's name are marked on the cover with a pen, but I could be wrong.

The whole story is told in verse and the lettering is always embedded in interesting ways much as you see above. Either by circumstance or design, the story comes across as intensely personal and tragic.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Loyal ELEPHANTMEN readers may have been wondering what happened to issue #14, which was supposed to ship in, uh, February. Well, our regular artist, Moritat, who has been the backbone of the book for nearly two years decided that it was time for him to take a break. Hopefully Moritat will return to the series from time to time but meantime I had a problem -- who could fill Moritat's shoes for the conclusion of the story arc begun in #13? Moritat graciously offered to work with the colourist to ensure the book maintained the same style and atmosphere... but who knew the characters...? Who could match Moritat's sense of action and adventure AND capture my sense of humour...

Me Grate Mate, Ian CABLE COVEN X-MEN SUPERGIRL TITANS Churchill generously offered to provide pencil breakdowns for both issues #14 and #15. Other artists would not call these pages "breakdowns" -- they'd call them finished art! Interestingly enough, Ian created the pages in much the same way Moritat has worked since #1 -- two pages on a landscape page of 8 and a half by 11 paper. Once each page was ready, Ian scanned each page and enlarged it in Photoshop to approximately 11 by 17.

ELEPHANTMEN's ace cover artist, BOO! COOK kindly offered to bring Ian's superb breakdowns to black and white life. Ian uploaded high resolution scans of his pencil breakdowns to the Comicraft ftp, virtually 6,000 miles away. Boo, who lives just 20 miles away from Ian, downloaded them to his computer and added weight and substance with digital ink. Both Ian and Boo's familiarity with all the characters meant that they were able to match the quality of Moritat's art on the previous issue.

After Ian adjusted Boo's final inks with some fancy schmancy Photoshop electrickery, the pages are downloaded by colourist Gabriel Bautista and rendered in Photoshopin a style similar to Moritat's colour treatment for the last issue.

Working from lo res jpegs generated from the colour files placed into an illustrator files with copy safe, trim and bleed guides (the blue lines), I script and letter the book SIMULTANEOUSLY! I actually place pages side by side as they will appear in the finished comic to help give me an idea of how the pages work together. Note that the BLAMs are identical to those in the lead story in #8. It's as if I'm paying attention or maybe I have some kind of a plan.